From returning to Destiny, to learning of the Predetermined, and then to walking into the Predetermined and witnessing the Universe Truth... Throughout this process, Cheng Shi had always been passive.
He had been swept along and pushed forward by the wills of all sides, never even getting a chance to catch his breath.
But after speaking with another version of himself and personally witnessing that streak of Bloody Mockery explode within the real universe, Cheng Shi's mindset finally began to change.
Submission meant surrender.
Only resistance could win him true freedom.
He should have understood this long ago. After all, that was exactly what the God of Merriment had done. The leader of the Fear Faction had always been "teaching by example." It was just that Cheng Shi had remained trapped in his nostalgia for the past and had been unable to face his own heart. Naturally, he could not take that step.
Old Jia wanted him to become the top scorer. Yes, the number-one position on the Ladder of Audience was already within reach. If he continued undergoing the trials step by step, then one day he would compete with the Dragon King and Zhen Xin for that position—and that day was already close at hand.
But what then?
After fulfilling this "last wish," would he continue scraping by in this experiment as a variable that constantly yearned for the "initial variable"?
But whether he could scrape by or not was not up to him either. Fish on the chopping block had no choice. The so-called survival of fish was nothing more than praying that the fishmonger would not bring down the knife immediately.
In this state, whether he was alive or became the top scorer, it was all vague and illusory. It was all self-deception.
If he was